UPDATE 2-Asian Citrus FY profit up; confident of current year

* Maintains final dividend at 0.8 yuan

* Says preserving cash to fund Hunan plantation

* Says comfortable with mkt view for current financial yr * Sees expanding its distribution network

* Sees 2009/10 capex at 150 mln yuan, 200 mln for 2010/11

(Adds FD comments; updates share movement)

By Tresa Sherin Morera

BANGALORE, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Asian Citrus Holdings Ltd (ACHLA.L), a China-based orange-plantation owner, posted a 20 percent rise in full-year pretax profit aided by higher sales of oranges in the period and said it was comfortable with market forecasts for the current financial year.

The company, which focused resources on expanding its distribution network, said it was able to extend its sales to supermarkets in the Beijing and Guizhou Province.

"We are talking to a few more supermarkets, customers at the moment -- all of them are mostly located along the coasts," Finance Director Eric Sung told Reuters.

The company, which sold about 42,977 tonnes of oranges to supermarkets directly, up 22 percent from a year ago, also said it was confident of continued progress.

Three analysts on average are expecting the company to post a pretax profit before items of 327.8 million yuan on revenue of 813.7 million yuan for the year ending June 2010, according to Reuters Estimates.

However, the company said it was not looking at export at the moment.

"We are only accounting for about 2.5 pct of the overall market share. We think that there is still a long way to go for us in the Chinese domestic market... So it is too early for us to think about export," Sung said.

The finance director also said he sees capital expenditure of about 150 million yuan in the current financial year and around 200 million yuan in the financial year 2010.

"In the next few years, the most major capital expenditure for the group will be the investment in the Hunan plantation," Sung added.

FY09 HELPED BY HIGHER PRODUCTION

Asian Citrus maintained its final dividend for financial year 2009 at 0.8 yuan and said it was planning to conserve cash to fund its Hunan plantation, which has a budget of about 580 million yuan, and for working capital requirments.

"For orange trees, it's only about six months time when you can have crops. So, we have a problem when six months we have no revenue at all and that's why we need to keep more cash on hand," Sung said.

For the year ended June 30, 2009, the company said its pretax profit rose to 442.3 million yuan ($64.77 million) from 367.7 million yuan last year. Revenue grew 25 percent to 668.5 million yuan.

Revenue from the sales of oranges were up 20.5 percent to 634.9 million yuan, achieved by an increase of 17 percent in production and a 3 percent rise in average selling price, Asian Citrus said.

The most important measure to the group is China's stimulus plan of 4 trillion yuan, which aims to promote domestic demand and economic growth of the economy by targeting gross domestic product growth of 8 percent per annum, the company said.

"We believe that this plan will greatly enhance domestic demand for consumables and we are confident that we will be able to expand our distribution network to more supermarkets in the near future," Chairman Tony Tong said in a statement on Tuesday.

Asian Citrus shares were up 1.6 percent at 312.5 pence at 1050 GMT on the London Stock Exchange. ($1=6.829 YUAN) (Editing by Jarshad Kakkrakandy)